


The Re-Evaluation of Clara Oswald

by Atunenamedclara



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, LGBTQ Female Character, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atunenamedclara/pseuds/Atunenamedclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.<br/>But very familiar to whom exactly?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life After Life / The Beginning

Clara gasped as her knees gave out and she fell to meet the dry earth below her. Her hands hit the ground on impact and she collapsed in relief, too tired to move. The hot midday sun beat down on her back, causing the thin jersey dress she was wearing to cling to her like plastic. She wiped her forehead with her hand and rolled over on her back, shielding her face from the glare. Ashildr dropped down next to her, laughing at her facial expression.   
“I think we lost it” Ashildr stated, pulling a water bottle from the back pocket of her shorts and opening its cap.  
“Gimme” Clara held out her hand as Ashildr took a long sip and passed it to her.  
“The look on its face!” Ashildr laughed “I have never, and I mean never, seen a creature look as frightened and furious as that one did!”  
Clara spat her water out on the ground as she burst out laughing “And its legs when it was running after us, so floppy and wrinkly!”  
Ashildr threw herself onto her back and pulled out her sunglasses “Nothing like a bit of alien chasing to start off the day right”   
“I mean, some people just go out for brunch you know” Clara positioned herself, her head resting on Ashildr’s stomach.  
They lay there for a while, talking and laughing, Ashildr teasing Clara on the speed of her running, Clara making sly digs about Ashildr’s need to stop and catch her breath.  
Ashildr pushed Clara off of her, and stood up, brushing the dirt off her legs.   
“I’m going back to the Tardis, I left my phone there, you need anything?”  
Clara shook her head sleepily and rolled over onto her stomach, hands under her head.  
“Here have this, don’t get mud in your hair” Ashildr threw Clara the cotton shirt she had been wearing tied around her waist. “Don’t wander off. I’ll be back soon”  
Clara lifted her hand and gestured with her finger in Ashildr’s direction as she began to head back through the trees.  
Clara closed her eyes and breathed out deeply, feeling her body relax. She still wasn’t used to not needing air and breathing made her feel normal, kept her life under control. The past three months had been tough, but she finally felt comfortable again. Travelling with Ashildr was difficult because it was so different to travelling with the Doctor in some ways, but so exactly the same in other ways.   
She needed this rhythm in her life, she needed the running and the adrenaline and the excitement. Without it her life was boring and dull, so in that respect, travelling with Ashildr was exactly what she needed. But she did miss her life on earth. Her job had meant a lot to her and had been her last remaining tie with her first proper love and she missed it sometimes. But not being able to go back to London anytime after That Day made it easier for her.   
Suddenly, the noise of the Tardis materialising filled the crisp air, and the dirt on the ground spun up in a cloud, making Clara cough. She realised that Ashildr must have been too tired to walk back and had decided to just bring the Tardis to where they were sitting.  
Clara grinned and got up, idly wondering if they had any Magnums left in the freezer.  
She turned around expecting to come face to face with Ashildr but instead walked straight into the back of a man in a velvet suit jacket.   
Clara screamed in shock, dropping her water bottle, the contents spilling out, turning the ground under her feet to sludge.   
The man turned around, annoyance registering on his face, his thick eyebrows furrowed deep.  
It was him.  
He stared at her in the eyes for a moment, looked her up and down and then opened his mouth slowly.   
“Sorry, but who the hell are you and what are you doing in my forest?”


	2. How Do You Know My Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.  
> But very familiar to whom exactly?

The Doctor glared at her coldly, making Clara realise how lucky she had been to always be his friend, never his foe. This thought sent a pang straight to her heart, so she shook it from her head, her sharp mind coming into focus again.

“Wait.” She looked at him quizzically “Your forest?”

“Yes my forest, do you have a problem with that?” The brows deepened.

“No, no, um, it’s just, I didn’t know you owned a forest?” The words escaped her mouth before she had time to register what she had said.

“Well of course you didn’t know. Why would you? I’ve never met you before in my life, and I know that for a fact.”

“Oh you do now do you?” She challenged him defiantly, tilting her head sideways.

“Well of course I do, I remember everyone I meet”

Clara, who had been stepping slowly away from him to regain some sense of personal space, stopped in her tracks. Whilst in her head she knew he didn’t remember her, she had never expected to be confronted with the fact face to face. If it was never said out loud she could pretend it wasn’t real. But having him standing right ahead of her saying it out loud, well that made it large as life and twice as ugly.

“You...” She stuttered, her eyes reddening “You really don’t know who I am?”

But by this point The Doctor was ignoring her, scanning the ground busily, looking for some probably nonexistent alien threat. He was always doing this. Tuning out those less important than him, always assuming nobody was worth listening to unless it was him speaking. Or her. He had always listened to her.

Well, she thought. She wasn’t standing for that. She knew exactly how to deal with him, and she would be doing exactly that. Nobody ignored Clara Oswald, especially not the man she gave everything up for, the man she would have died for and the man that dragged her back to life against all odds.

“Doctor.” She stated his name calmly.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” came the muffled reply “And how do you know my name?!”

“You are not busy, your scanning the ground with a silly little light, no, don’t give me that look, you aren’t pressing the right settings for alien detection, you’re pressing the torch function you added in because you thought it made you look cool” Clara had been taking a wild guess in the dark with that statement, she had no idea how his new screwdriver worked after all.

However, based on the way his face reddened slightly, she realised she hadn’t been far off from the truth.

“Anyway. Now I have your attention” Clara put on her best teacher voice “I know exactly who you are.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow, amused but intrigued, waiting to hear more.

“You’re the Doctor. You’re nearly 2000 years old and you travel through time and space in a blue box which is smaller on the outside. You have seen things I wouldn’t believe, and have been places beyond the wildest stretch of my imagination. You travel alone except for the times when you don’t. But right now you are alone and are more alone than you have ever been”

Clara clenched and unclenched her fists behind her back as she spoke, trying to appear calm but in reality she was a shaking wreck inside.

The Doctor’s face paled a shade or two.

“How do you know all that?” He spoke roughly, his Scottish accent coming through richer than ever.

Just as Clara opened her mouth to reply, tell him everything, make him believe her, footsteps echoed through the forest, coming closer towards her.

Ashildr sauntered down the beaten path, typing on her phone as she came.

“Clara!” She called out to the ashen girl “Is everything ok?”

The Doctor whipped his head around sharply at the name.

Ashildr looked up at him in surprise.

“Doctor?” She asked hesitantly for nothing shocked Ashildr anymore; things just mildly threw off her judgment. She regarded the Doctor, not in shock, just in curious amazement.

“Ashildr?” He took two steps back as if he had seen a ghost. “After all this time?”


	3. A Diner in my Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.  
> But very familiar to whom exactly?

Ashildr tilted her head and looked him in the eye “Interesting” she hummed under her breath “you remember me but not Clara..why?”

“Neuro block. Only helped him to forget me” Clara replied quickly.

“Yes, yes I know that” Ashildr shook her head impatiently “What I mean is, is that if he remembers me and he knows that I’m strongly linked to you, which I am, there must be some trace of you left in his memories, anything, even residual damage.”

Clara wiped her eyes fiercely on the back of her hand “So you think he could remember me?”

“Maybe but it will take time”

The Doctor rolled his eyes “what exactly will take time Ashildr? Or are we not going to get to that part in the next century? Because I know me and you have all that time but this mortal here looks very fragile, could pass out any minute, you know what pudding brains are like – “

He broke off as Ashildr slapped him somewhat harshly on the cheek. She opened her mouth as if to tell him exactly what she thought of his theatrics but Clara stepped in before she could.

“Doctor if there is one thing I’m not right now then it’s mortal. And you are the cause for all of that so if you could just do as Ashildr says then that would be very much appreciated!”

“Tardis. Now” Ashildr pushed them in the general direction of the trees, Clara stumbling over roots as she went and the Doctor complaining under his breath.

“Tardis. Parked Right there. Honestly. Humans, they never get anything right”

Suddenly he stopped short causing Clara to bang into his back. She rubbed her forehead ruefully whilst digging around in her pockets for the keys to their Tardis.

“I don’t mean to alarm you Ashildr but you appear to have parked a Diner in my forest.”

“Yeah, still not your forest you know” Clara muttered and handed the keys over to Ashildr who turned them in the lock and shoved the doctor through the entrance.

The Doctor paused. The Doctor looked around. The Doctor stepped out of the door. The Doctor stepped back in again.

“Your Diner!” He exclaimed “It’s bigger on the inside!”

Clara sniggered but quickly replaced it with a stern looking frown when the Doctor looked over at her. He glowered and then turned back to Ashildr.

Ashildr pulled him aside and started explaining to him in a low tone all the events which had led up to this point, from the moment the raven had set its sights on Clara until he came across them in a forest on a distant planet.

Clara sighed and wandered over to the console controls. She flicked a few switches, half heartedly playing with the buttons before laying her head on the cold metal.

Everything was falling apart. The small hope that the Doctor remembered her had shattered into a million pieces and her life had been once again turned upside down by him.

God she hated him. But oh god did she love him.

She blinked hard but this time, she didn’t succeed in keeping the tears back. She let them fall unchecked as she finally let go. Her life wasn’t in her control anymore and the sooner she realised that the sooner it could be again. She felt a soft hand on her back. Somewhere in the back of her wildest imagination she thought maybe it was the Doctor, maybe he remembered enough about her to still care. But when she lifted her head it was Ashildr she saw, concern written in her usually stormy eyes. The Doctor was off to the side, eyes cast downwards, hands in his pockets.

“Clara” She spoke softly, seeing the anguish in her eyes “he’s going to help. He wants to remember you. But it will hurt. Can you do it for me? For yourself?”

“Yes.” Clara whispered. “But oh god, let me be brave”


	4. I Owe You Nothing Clara Oswald / The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.  
> But very familiar to whom exactly?

Clara looked around at her surroundings as if in a daze, which she had been for the last half an hour. She had been following Ashildr’s quiet instructions numbly, too nervous about the road ahead and in too much pain at the events leading up to this moment to stop and process anything. Privately she thought it was lucky she didn’t need to breathe anymore because she probably would have forgotten how to.

The Doctor sat at a table in the centre of the room, head bent downwards, looking like a convicted criminal. As he looked up at Clara she swallowed hard trying to keep her emotions under control. He looked so sad, and his eyes, his eyes were so old and so tired.

He smiled at Clara, but the warmth she usually saw in him was gone. She knew him and for that he smiled at her. But he didn’t know her and for that the emotion behind the smile was gone. He didn’t know why he was smiling at her. He just did it because he knew she would want him to.

The full force of the pain hit her hard. Her legs shook as she walked towards the chair Ashildr had put in place for her. She was sitting opposite the only person in the world she had left to care about and he, well he was sitting opposite a total stranger.

She cleared her throat nervously “So...um...how much do you actually...you know, remember of me?”

“Aaah Miss Oswald” The Doctor sighed sadly. “Only what I’ve been told by Ashildr over there”

“But you must remember something Doctor? All those things we did, all the places we saw, how can you not remember any of it?”

“I remember the places I went to. But time is a complicated thing, it rewrote itself when I forgot you so all those things you say you saw with me, in my mind I saw them alone”

“I’m not _saying_ I saw them with you, I’m telling you I did” Clara folded her arms angrily and scowled at him.

“Whatever you say Clara” The Doctor stared into her eyes intensely.

Clara stared back hoping to see some warmth, a twinkle, anything at all. But all she received was a cold gaze, a gaze she hadn’t seen since the very first time this face of his looked into hers. It was a face of mistrust and hostility, a face she never thought she would see again.

“Doctor” She leant forward to him until their faces were nearly touching “Remember when you regenerated? And I said I didn’t know who you were anymore? You made me look for you, you made me look at you until I saw you. And Doctor, you know what? It was bloody hard. But I did it. And now if you ever loved me, even if you don’t know that you did just take my word for it, do the same for me. Look at me. See me. Please Doctor.”

“But Clare, don’t you see the problem yet? I don’t remember you doing that for me. So why should I do that for you?”

“Because you LOVED me Doctor! Because I was the only person you trusted, time and time again, it was ME you came back for, it was ME you faced the Time-lords for Doctor, it was all ME. So do one last thing for me. Please. Try to remember me. Try to see me.”

“Why?”

“Because I am _asking_ you to.”

The Doctor stood up. He paced around the room; fingers pursed together touching his lips. He paced for a long time, so long that Clara began to wonder if he would ever stop. Finally he sat down again.

“Ok.”

“Wha..what?” Clara stammered, sure she had misheard him

“I said ok. I’ll try but I don’t promise to see you. I owe you nothing Clara Oswald. Just remember that.”


	5. In his eyes / The memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.  
> But very familiar to whom exactly?

4:00pm

Clara pulled her chair closer to the Doctor and sat down.

“Alright. I’m just going to tell you everything that we did together and if there’s any point you think you remember even the smallest thing about, stop me. Ok?”

The Doctor nodded in agreement.

And Clara began.

She told him everything. She told him about the very first time she met him, about how he parked the Tardis along Southbank and took her to breakfast through a shortcut. She told him about the submarine under the soviet sea, where she fought Ice Warriors alongside long dead Russian soldiers. She told him the fun times, about the glowing blue fruit of Akhaten and the time she was proposed too by a space emperor. She told him about the scarier times, when they fought Cybermen and Whisper Men and inner demons.

She spoke to him about events she didn’t experience. About Oswin and Clara and a million other echoes. And she told him about how he saved her time and time again.

But in his eyes she saw nothing.

 

5:30pm

Clara was still speaking. The Doctor listening intently to every word, trying his best to remember anything at all.

She continued to tell him of the things they had seen and the life they had lead together. She told him about the worlds they had seen and the pain they had endured together.

She told him of faraway worlds where the truth had to be spoken and of dinosaurs in Victorian London. She told him about the trust she broke standing on the edge of a volcano and about dreams within dreams.

But the problem was, he _knew_ it all already. Just a different version of it all. A version without her.

All the pain they had gone through together, every bit of it, in his version of events he had gone through it alone.

And in his eyes she saw nothing.

 

7:45pm

Clara put her mug of tea down on the table and sighed. Ashildr sat on a barstool, swinging her legs and looking up at her. The Doctor had requested they take a break, not for his sake but because she looked like she was about to collapse.

The fact that he still cared for her even when he knew nothing about her broke her heart. He might say he owed her nothing but deep down, buried far beneath two hearts, some part of him still knew her. And some part of him still retained that duty of care.

“So..?” Ashildr prompted

“So...nothing” Clara took a sip of tea, winced as the hot liquid burnt her tongue and set it back down again. “He doesn’t know me”

“Not even a bit?”

“Nope. There were times, seconds really, where I saw some recognition in his eye but it was like trying to remember a dream once you’ve woken up. It’s all so real in the moment but when it’s gone it’s gone.”

“Don’t give up yet Clara, we’ll find a way” Ashildr looked at her, more sincere than she had ever been before. Probably because she knew that to some degree this mess was all her fault.

“But what if this is how it’s meant to be Ashildr? What if he really isn’t meant to remember me? I should just let it go, move on with my life, like I was before.”

“Because you don’t just walk away Clara! That’s not what you do!”

Clara opened her mouth to protest but was stopped before she could start

“Nuh uh!” Ashildr continued “You aren’t the sort of person to just give up, that isn’t you! I mean, look at you for god’s sake! You are to all extents and purposes, _dead._ But that hasn’t stopped you yet!”

Clara sighed, running her fingers through her hair. She knew Ashildr was right. She knew she didn’t just give up. She was just so tired of fighting, so tired of the universe making her work for what she was owed.

“So get off your arse Clara Oswald, and _win”_

With that statement, Ashildr pushed Clara back into the room next door where the Doctor was waiting for her.

The Doctor sat staring at a speck of dirt on the otherwise white wall. When Clara came in he jumped up.

“Clara Oswald” He started, his Scottish voice coming out strong and clear “I know what you did.”

And in his eyes she saw something.

 


	6. How Do You Forget // What You Never Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara Oswald has moved on. She's travelling through time with Ashildr, seeing the stars and living her (after)life. However, all of this is shattered with the reappearance of a very familiar figure in her life.  
> But very familiar to whom exactly?

“You...you what?” Clara stared at him, confusion visible in her wide eyes. “What did I do?”

“Well, I say I know what you did but I don’t. All I know is what you’ve said you did so you’d better not be lying to me Miss Oswald”

“I haven’t! I wouldn’t! I-” She broke off suddenly when she saw the familiar twinkle in his eye.

She felt a rush of gratitude that even though he didn’t know who she was he still trusted her in some way; some natural instinct of his told him she could be trusted.

She winced suddenly, pushing away memories of the times she had lied to him, he hadn’t trusted her.

“Alright Doctor, so what did I do?”

“Well, you said you entered my timestream yes? And there are echoes of you throughout my life, parts of you splintered throughout _my_ timeline, echoes of you that I didn’t know existed, yes?”

“Well yes but I don’t see...”

“Shh! Thinking! Doing incredibly clever things you wouldn’t understand, shh!”

Clara drew all 5’2 of herself up in indignation. Humph. Stupid Scottish alien.

The Doctor muttered for a few minutes, working out some equations, thinking something through. He put his hands to his lips and closed his eyes, brain probably working to maximum capacity.

Clara was beginning to think he had fallen asleep standing up when he snapped his eyes open.

“So, Clara Oswald, tell me this: How can I have forgotten you if I never knew you existed?”

Clara stared at him, mind racing. She hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was talking about but obviously she would never admit it. Best play him along; make him tell her without actually saying she didn’t understand.

“You mean..?” She started

“Yes exactly!”

“So if my..?”

“Your echoes, yes!”

Ah. Getting him somewhere now.

“So you think...”

“Yes, I do, I think it could work!”

“Ah but..?”

“Well Clara, I think it can work because you had so many echoes I never saw, therefore there must be some version of you I didn’t know existed so how can I have forgotten you?”

Nailed it. Worked every time.

She paused, trying to collect her thoughts. She opened her mouth slowly

“So...let me get this straight. You think that if you find a version of me that you never knew existed, some part of your subconscious will register it because after all, theoretically you knew I existed after the event but at the time you met me you didn’t?”

“Well yes I think that’s basically it.”

“And then what happens..?”

“Well hopefully then everything comes flooding back to me in a big wave, don’t quite know how yet, still working on that part”

Clara grinned, feeling more alive than she had in months.

“This is insane” She stated, crossing her arms, a smile playing on her lips.

“Yes, yes it is.” The Doctor looked at her “So Miss Oswald, what do you say? Shall we?

Clara took a deep breath and looked over at Ashildr who nodded.

“Doctor, I believe we shall”


End file.
